Finally, your talent search is over, but is creating a new employee engagement plan on your radar? At substantial cost to your company, you ran the ad, carefully combed through resumes, prescreened and interviewed applicants, and made the hires. Now your employees are ready to work—or are they?
Research and experience have shown that to start off right, people need more than just to be shown their desks and given a few company forms to fill out. Without a tangible roadmap for where they’re expected to go, or concrete guidance on how to get there, new employees will take longer to reach the point at which they effectively contribute to your team. Even worse, some may soon fall by the wayside and ultimately resign, costing your company time and money, and lowering employee morale. What can you do to avoid this negative cycle?
“Welcoming employees needs to go beyond surface introductions and compliance issues,” says Scott Kuethen. As the CEO of Amtec, a staffing agency based in Orange County, California, Kuethen has seen employees crash and burn due to the lack of a performance and productivity tool. “Managers need to intentionally strategize for how to engage employees in their work and in the company culture. They need to think beyond an orientation program to creating a new employee engagement plan that encompasses socialization and integration into a work group, department, or team.”
One of the easiest ways for you to launch a New Employee Engagement Plan is to gather relevant information and create a tool to enhance a new employee’s performance and productivity. A new employee who has clarity of performance expectations, key priorities, resources, and company information can be more productive, sooner. Since the first 90 days of new employees’ experience with the company can make or break their success, Kuethen recommends that a manager meet with employees on their starting day to review goals previously agreed upon during the hiring process. The goals should be written in SMART format–specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
“Having a roadmap and signposts along the way can help both new employees and their manager to see if things are moving in the right direction,” says Kuethen, who used Michael Watkins’ The First 90 Days to develop the Great Start Tool, a performance and productivity tool for Amtec’s customers to use with each new hire. So how can you create your own effective performance and productivity tool? Here are a few elements you might want to include:
Compiling this information into a performance and productivity tool will give your new employees the roadmap they need to start off right. But just as a newly planted seed needs water and light, you can’t just deliver the information and stop there. In order for the tool to be effective, you’ll need to establish follow-up procedures to ensure your employees’ success and their increasing engagement as they reach one signpost after another. Over the next few months, you’ll need to give them specific feedback to keep them pointed in the right direction, encouraging them in areas where they’re excelling, and redirecting them in areas where they may have wandered off course.
As a caring manager, your effort to take the guesswork out of the workplace will improve your new employees’ chances for success. Using a performance and productivity tool to clarify what new employees can expect and how they are to perform will help them move forward with confidence. Your use of a tool that encourages this kind of communication can engender a sense of trust and teamwork, giving new employees the best start possible. This gift, in return, can provide you with the coveted rewards of employee engagement, increased productivity, and company loyalty which every business strives to achieve.
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In the dynamic landscape of manufacturing, the year 2024 marks a significant leap forward, driven by advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation.
The assembly line is a critical segment of the manufacturing process where the real action takes place.
Today’s business landscape requires an increasing emphasis on sophisticated designs and advanced systems. Businesses are always on